Gritty

Real life is a lot grittier than Forza 2. No, I’m not talking film noir gritty, I’m talking about thousands of little stones and a tidal wave of dirt and sand gritty. I know this having spent a good half of the weekend vacuuming my car. The first half of the weekend I was tearing around Buttonwillow Raceway in the California desert.

My friends and I planned a track day. One friend just picked up a 2002 BMW M3, the other a 2006 Volvo S60 R. With helmets ready, we got to see what our cars could really do… in the hands of some of the track’s resident racer veterans. We were treated to a taste of the track’s true racing line with some scary hot laps, only then our rides were handed back to us. Some of the turns really required you to build up a fair deal of confidence before you could drive them in anger. 85 MPH around a sweeper seems completely sane in Forza, but when you come face to face with what a tiny misstep could do at that speed, and actually see the damage that would ensue flash before your eyes, it’s another thing entirely.

After three quarters of the day I felt like my C5 and I were really starting to communicate. If I was pushing a little too hard (usually due to attempting a completely asinine line through a turn) it would be conveyed audibly via the tires with room to come to some sort of compromise. The Star Mazda hairpin turn on the other hand proved to be completely different. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly happened, but what I do know is I was coming in fast, and ended up on the inside of the turn, facing the wrong direction, with a mouthful of desert. Without warning, the back-end swung around 180 degrees and kicked up an impressive amount of earth before coming to a stop. The car was covered. And, because it was roasting that day, my windows were wide open. Nice. But we were in one piece. Nothing harmed, except a little pride.

Maybe I should start playing DiRT.